


Emrys

by xerampelinae



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, POV Second Person, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One way Rule 63!Merlin could have had her most important secret discovered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emrys

**Author's Note:**

> Name changes: Merlin to Miroir (French, 'mirror'), Arthur to Auberon (retains 'bear' meaning)

It had been a nice day. You woke up on time, had time to casually stretch and dress before grabbing the breakfast tray from the kitchen. Auberon woke easily enough, if grumbling, and almost affectionately insulted your skills as a servant as she let you steal her apple, laughed when you call her “prat” in return.

You helped her dress in casual tunic and trousers, then layer on padding, mail and armor for drills and possibly a patrol. You were walking in step with her to the courtyard when a shout arrested you both--in full view of the waking castle, before either of you could lunge protectively--and sent you slipping into a different landscape.

There was no way for you to conceal what you had for so long, not when they targeted you first, sent a conjured lance straight through and through like the winter wind through an unpatched tear in your shirt. No way, not when you had to safeguard another’s life over your secrets.

\---

This is one way you could have been discovered. One you hadn’t expected: too dramatic, imagined sans the crease of pain that would have been too consuming. But here you are. 

Here you are, bleeding.

Your heart is electric, energy crackles and thrums in your veins alongside blood. Power is power, and yes, you are powerful, but everything has its price.

Maybe this is your price. Maybe you are the price.

Your fingers curve slightly as you try to move, useless where they shift less than a centimeter in tufted grass with the greatest effort you can exert. It’s not much. Maybe you’re not trying very hard. Maybe you’ve lost too much blood.

You want to react somehow, especially when Auberon appears in your line of sight, sweat dampening her braided crown of hair. Her face is blank and oh, that chills you more than anything else, even the pulsing spill of hot, hot blood away. You take a swallow of air, then another, because it’s not enough, you can’t get enough.

“Auberon,” you try to say, but your voice is strange and your throat is tight. You’re not sure she’d want to listen to you anyways, and look at you. Her sword is still in hand, blade naked and held as if she were evaluating a possible enemy. The sword shifts as Auberon adjusts her grip.

You don’t want to see it arc down for you, so you close your traitorous eyes and swallow. You wait several panicked heartbeats for--nothing. Auberon is sheathing her blade and kneeling before you, hands moving where you don’t want to think about.

“You don’t--” you stop, turn your head and cough your throat clear. 

You don’t want to see what stains the grass there. You don’t want to see Auberon’s face like this. “If you wait, you don’t have to do anything. Don’t have to watch another execution.”

Something about that sets Auberon’s mouth into a sharp, straight edge and she abruptly puts her hands and weight against the wound in your side. 

You cry out. It hurts, just as much as the initial wave of pain.

“Heal yourself,” Auberon says, you think she says. 

“Wha--?” you croak.

“Heal yourself, damn you,” she grinds out. “If you can do what you did, you can heal yourself.”

Your blood pounds against her fingers, like an agreement or an argument, you’re not sure which. Either way, you can’t ask that of Auberon, to set her against her father and everything he’s built. “You don’t want that.”

Auberon leans down over you, face pressing so close you can’t help but look at it. Your breath hitches with the pressure of her hands and the anger concentrated in her eyes. “You swore yourself to me,” she says. “Did you not?”

“Yes,” you say, trying not to lose focus.

“If you still hold yourself to your oaths you will listen to me now.” Auberon presses still closer, and your eyes flutter shut, feeling the waft of hot breath along your clammy cheeks. “Do you hold those oaths, Miroir, daughter of Hunith?”

You take several breaths before you have enough wind to speak. “Always.”

“Then do it. Heal yourself.”

“Okay,” you say, steeling yourself, gathering the lingering buzz of energy in your blood. “Okay.”

You’re not good at healing. You’re not particularly good at fine skilled tasks; what you are good at has become so through sheer repetition. What you do have is energy, maybe too much of it for it not to spill out without your leave.

You are only as good as your word, it seems, will live or die by it--in the immediate sense, at the very least. You’ve always tried to keep your word, but especially to Auberon, you've spent enough time lying to her. One more impossible task to perform.

There is no time for finesse, learned or exploratory. Instead your eyes glow gold as you pour your will and energy into reconstruction. It feels a lot like pain, to tell the truth. You are grounded in consciousness only by Auberon, whose hands still press forcefully down, and even that is slipping from you.

“Mir,” Auberon says, your name halved and sharpened by the local dialect--it used to bother you, but now it seems fond. Your eyes blink open hazily and--when did they close? you feel drunk on exhaustion--you are staring at Auberon’s lips as she shifts back and considers the flesh her hands had clamped down upon. Her mouth shifts and softens marginally as she considers you; you blink and she’s shifting one bloody hand down a ratty sleeve to your wrist.

You wait to see what she’ll do or say next but your eyelids flicker shut and you pass right the fuck out.

\---

Tang of salt, warmth, rocking movement, cradled body. You think you’re in the ocean under the afternoon sun, somehow cradled in lapping water. You don’t know, everything blurring together in and out of place.

\---

Your eyes open to a starry expanse of sky as someone lays you flat along the ground, tries to be gentle about it. You have no voluntary control; your eyes flicker shut and your ribs expand outwards. Someone blankets you with a soporific warmth and it carries you back down under.

\---

Early morning sunlight slants down along your pillow, unfamiliar in its position. Whether in your bed in the physician’s rooms or in your mother’s home, you’ve never woken with the sun like this. 

And--with familiar strangeness, soft linens along your skin. You shift your head to feel fabric whisper, not rasp, along your neck. It feels familiar in your hands; of course, you think you’ve washed or handled them every day for months, except those days when you were too wretchedly ill.

But you don’t know why you’re here.

You turn your head and, oh, there she is, lying on her side. You have time now to study her, her broad shoulders looking as strong as an heir apparent and future regent to a kingdom such as this would need. She’s not wearing a shift or nightshirt, but she sleeps bare often enough that the open display of muscle and curve are not particularly alarming.

You look and consider what you can see of her face--cast in shadows by angle, heavily mussed crown of braid a brilliant corona in the dawn light--but you get lost in the absence of turmoil that sleep brings most everyone. For a moment she moves only with deep, steady breaths, but then her eyes flicker open.

You don’t sleep alongside each other when she drags you out on hunting trips. You’ve seen her wake, but feeling the bed shift beneath you as she stretches strikes you as something different. Auberon settles back to watch you.

“Are you really awake now?” she asks, voice rumbling sleepily.

You twitch your head forward in a nod; you don't know where your words have gone, but they're not with you now.

"Good," Auberon says and presses closer with all her warmth. "You can tell me what you've been concealing when we wake up again."

There is nothing more to do than obey. You settle back onto linens and warmth and fall back asleep. It is the start of a new good day.


End file.
